Checking In

It has been a while since I have had a chance to write in this forum, but things have been pretty busy.  The time change changes everything around here.  With the farm as my second job, the time changing makes it a little hectic to get everything done before darkness arrives.  The cows are moving closer to the house and their winter feeding station (the barn).  The grasses are done growing and they will probably be here this coming week.  We had our last calf of the season on Thursday morning.  A nice looking bull.  Our season in all was great.  The fall calving worked out as I had hoped it would.   Turning to a lowline angus bull made a tremendous difference in our calves.  We had no calving problems this year.  In about a month we will begin breeding for next year.  The great part of an artificial program is know exactly when the cows will be calving and having complete control of the bulls used.  Before breeding, I take a look at all of the EPD (the bulls stats) and choose ones that fit our program.  I have focussed on Calving Ease (so I do not have to pull any out) and reduced Frame Scores (the height of the animal).    I had hoped to finish picking our corn this weekend, but a break-down will be preventing that.  Our corn picker is an old one, and old parts break.  Hopefully we can get it fixed and finish this week.  The weather is supposed to cooperate.  However, this is Northwest PA and the weather could turn at any day and never look back.  We also took the delivery of another 200 layers.  This batch was Black Austrolorp.  I am really looking forward to their production.